Neckam’s writings were numerous, and, as might have been expected from his wide studies, in varied fields. They include grammatical treatises,[557] works on Ovid and classical mythology, commentaries upon the books of the Bible such as the Psalms and Song of Songs, and the writings of Aristotle, and other works of a literary, scientific, or theological character.[558] Most of them, however, if extant, are still in manuscript. Only a few have been printed;[559] among them is _The Natures of Things_ which we shall presently consider. Neckam is a good illustration of the humanistic movement in the twelfth century. He wrote Latin verse[560] as well as prose; took pains with and pride in his Latin style; and shows acquaintance with a large number of classical authors. He had some slight knowledge, at least, of Hebrew. He was especially addicted, according to Wright,[561] to those ingenious but philologically absurd derivations of words in which the _Etymologies_ of Isidore of Seville had dealt, explaining, for example, the Latin word for corpse (_cadaver_) as compounded from the three roots seen in the words for flesh (_caro_), given (_data_), to worms (_vermibus_). Yet in one chapter of _The Natures of Things_ Neckam attacks “the verbal cavils” and use of obsolete words in his time as “useless and frivolous,” and asks if one cannot be a good jurist or physician or philosopher without all this linguistic and verbal display.[562] Wright, moreover, was also impressed by Neckam’s interest in natural science, calling him “certainly one of the most remarkable English men of science in the twelfth century,”[563] and noting that “he not infrequently displays a taste for experimental science.”[564] [Sidenote: _De naturis rerum._]